so good, right?
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 15:47 (1 year ago) Permalink
thanking u
just out of curiosity, how would you rate the possibly-not-as-ubiquitous-as-i-think-they-are franchises:
i. artemis fowlii. diary of a wimpy kidiii. skulduggery pleasant
― thomp, Monday, 11 July 2011 15:47 (1 year ago) Permalink
Sorry, actually quite busy so reduced to being cheering section. Also in terms of new stuff, I get most of my reading from work these days and our YA is extremely "commercial" so apart from SB'er and some others, most of it isn't what you're asking for.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 15:48 (1 year ago) Permalink
you attacked me for reading 'the hunger games.' then you call me a jerk? sorry if i offended you somehow
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 11 July 2011 15:48 (1 year ago) Permalink
(my vested interest here is that my nephew is being put off reading by being deluged with brightly coloured FOR THE KIDS type books that people get him which largely appear to be .. kind of awful, and it is a lot harder to go into the bookstore and buy YA books than it was to buy picture books)
― thomp, Monday, 11 July 2011 15:48 (1 year ago) Permalink
there's a general-purpose YA thread somewhere, isn't there? maybe i should revive that one
― thomp, Monday, 11 July 2011 15:49 (1 year ago) Permalink
you attacked me for reading 'the hunger games.'
You can keep thinking that's what I was "attacking" you for, or you can re-consider about how dismissive you were about the literary "merit" of books for kids/young people.
thomp, honestly I haven't read any of any of those three. They give me the lip-curl when I see them around...hadn't realized Skullduggery Pleasant had become a thing?
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 15:52 (1 year ago) Permalink
There is an excellent YA sf/f thread somewhere but it's probably like 700 posts.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 15:53 (1 year ago) Permalink
artemis fowl are kind of silly –- they've got some good ideas, but they seem a little too calibrated (?) cynical (?) for my taste. there's definitely an audience, but they're so commercial that they sometimes seem more like a product than a series of books in their own right. whenever i'm reading artemis fowl, i sort of wish i were reading diane wynn jones
diary of a wimpy kid is fluff, but its formatting is obv. very appealing for struggling readers (marginalia, text design, illustrations, limited words/page) and it's pretty funny, i think. they series isv. easy, and doesn't go to any depth or characterization so the books don't have a cross-generational appeal in the way they might the format was used to better, and more interesting effect in tom angleberger's 'the strange case of the origami yoda' which came out last year.
i haven't read skulduggery pleasant; it hardly made splash over here. i've got an ARC of it sitting on the sofa and i'm meaning to get to it.
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 15:54 (1 year ago) Permalink
sorry abt. poor editing above ^^^
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 15:55 (1 year ago) Permalink
@thomp: how old is your nephew? how is his reading?
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 15:58 (1 year ago) Permalink
I think the really good stuff ends up coming out in areas that aren't popular at the time, it just goes unnoticed a bit until things quiet down. I don't think the repetitive and increasingly sensational sf/f that's everywhere right now is going to be the stuff of this era that lasts -- not when we've got Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and some gender-bendy/LGBTQ "issue" books by Julie Peters and others that are also v good and will probably burrow into kids' thinking more deeply and, one hopes, lastingly, but aren't going to make headlines now.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 15:59 (1 year ago) Permalink
And I normally dislike like "issue" books, I'm just sayin'.
i sort of wish i were reading diane wynn jones is basically my motto in life.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:01 (1 year ago) Permalink
when was i ever dismissive about the literary merit of books for kids/young people? i haven't said a single negative thing on this thread . . . that i revived! how very district one tribute of you
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:04 (1 year ago) Permalink
i'm sorry. i said something negative about harold bloom
well, help yourself to that. he's kind of a turd.
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:05 (1 year ago) Permalink
i'm reading his new book alongside 'the hunger games.' definitely prefer 'the hunger games'
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:06 (1 year ago) Permalink
black jelly bean: cold oatmeal
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:10 (1 year ago) Permalink
why people get so defensive about their aesthetic tastes i'll never understand
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:12 (1 year ago) Permalink
i really enjoyed patrick ness's 'chaos walking' trilogy despite some incompetent and repetitive plotting. certainly i think its a little more sophisticated in how it approaches its dystopia & the way it presents moral questions to the reader than hunger games.
― my baby eats special k all day (Lamp), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:17 (1 year ago) Permalink
good call, lamp: I am actually thinking of reading the first novel in the series w/ my class in the fall. I think Knife of Never Letting Go raises some really interesting ontological questions.
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:19 (1 year ago) Permalink
qualmsley:i'd say that maybe for a lot of people 'aesthetic taste' represents a cultural investment or a hard-won knowledge and experience, and there's a lot of ego bound up in what is a kind of half- arbitrary judgement.
It wasn't even about my taste so I'm not sure what that was? It was about remy, are you serious that you expect literary erudition to shine throughout young adult novels? But let's agree that you're not going to understand what I was saying and I'm not going to keep trying.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:24 (1 year ago) Permalink
fwiw i liked the first hunger games book & read it in a single afternoon. its working w/in a structure that i really like tho & i thought the simple, direct language a point in its favor. i did sort of think it was interesting how it seemed to be geared at readers who needed to be able to visualize the action clearly, & think it suffers a little emotionally/psychologically for that.
but honestly idk for a reluctant reader i think theres also value just in 'reading what everyone else is reading', in being able to take part in the conversation surrounding the books. helps make it more social/interesting/compulsive? this is just an idea i have about ~culture~ tho idk
― my baby eats special k all day (Lamp), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:25 (1 year ago) Permalink
Definitely, there's always the argument for encouraging kids to read whatever they WILL read, and to get the habit of reading and talking about reading, which conveniently dovetails with publishers' desire to sell a great number of copies. My cynicism about the second part shouldn't negate the good stuff about the first part.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:28 (1 year ago) Permalink
remy my nephew is actually only like nine. but he's actually a moderately advanced reader for his age -- it's just that he seems to be rapidly losing enthusiasm & it seems kind of hard to find stuff that's suitable, neither overly-childish nor alien in its concerns. i'm not about to get him the hunger games, i gotta say
like okay when i was a kid i was hooked on dragonlance and shit by that age, that was easy enough; but i don't know what to do w/r/t the 'repetitive and increasingly sensational sf/f that's everywhere right now', as laurel puts it, which seems to be what kids want to actually read (how long until the first zombie series for kids) (brb, writing to a publisher) --
like what you say about a. fowl: they sometimes seem more like a product than a series of books in their own right: seems to apply to about 75% of what's in the kid's section of the bookstore at the moment
― thomp, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:31 (1 year ago) Permalink
Thread's already too long, but I thought the "Lemony Snicket" books were among the most subversive, post-modern, just plain smart and funny YA-ish books I've ever read.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:34 (1 year ago) Permalink
Lamp: Agreed. I'm approaching these books as a teacher, if that helps to qualify my bile. I'm all for kids reading what they'd like, when they'd like. I don't totally buy the 'as long as they're reading' line, but I do think that independent reading – especially in the case of reluctant readers / LD kids – should be self-directed for a start, and gradually channeled into a careful, but not oppressive, appreciation for good books.
thomp: there's a lot of great realistic fiction for boys that is not reductive or lame, or overly issues-driven (ugh), which has not always been the case. YA sci-fi/fantasy is a mixed bag at best, but I agree w/ Laurel that it is not mostly lasting and some of it is passing fun.
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:34 (1 year ago) Permalink
The Forest of Hands and Teeth beat you to it.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:35 (1 year ago) Permalink
I'm tired of marketable book series-to-film. I got over Harry Potter ages ago and Twilight was a pitiful joke. Hunger Games doesn't look much different. I miss when authors used to write individual novels rather than serials, I get tired of the sameness after the second book.
― Breezy Summer Jam (MintIce), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:36 (1 year ago) Permalink
xxxp lemony snicket was like thomas pynchon jr. plotwise but i could never quite handle the prose.
― my Sonicare toothbrush (difficult listening hour), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:36 (1 year ago) Permalink
not cuz it was so bad just because it was Always On.
― my Sonicare toothbrush (difficult listening hour), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:37 (1 year ago) Permalink
I think the Snicket prose is part of the joke. It'll suddenly digress into a discussion of King Lear or the water cycle with no warning, just to keep you on your toes. If anything, it reminded me a whole lot of Tristram Shandy, right down to the black page.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:38 (1 year ago) Permalink
Like, wheel-spinning as an art.
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:40 (1 year ago) Permalink
― Breezy Summer Jam (MintIce), Monday, July 11, 2011 12:36 PM (54 seconds ago) Bookmark
the 'best' part about the hunger games adaptation is they're making 4 movies out of 3 books
― Ayatollah Colm Meaney (Princess TamTam), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:42 (1 year ago) Permalink
My daughters are both obsessed with what a spindle even is. Most antiquated fairy tale staple?
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:43 (1 year ago) Permalink
Now, see the L Snicket books are a good example of a successful book/series without too many predecessors that absolutely set off a mania for "wacky hijinx" stories involving groups of kids. That accounts for the Skullduggery Pleasant series, DEFINITELY, BIG-TIME for the "Secrets Series" (The Name of this Book Is Secret et al) by "Pseudonymous Bosch", and I'm sure for 17 other currently successful extended series, too.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:46 (1 year ago) Permalink
The original had merits, but most of the other ideas that it made possible/successful will just be variations without the deftness or depth.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:48 (1 year ago) Permalink
pseudonymous bosch is another pen name for daniel handler, aka lemony snicket. i think you're right about there being v. little precedent for series of unfortunate events, tbh
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:49 (1 year ago) Permalink
Oh bother, really? I read the first three and then was like, I don't know if I just lost the thread but I'm over this now.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:50 (1 year ago) Permalink
i actually read two of the skulduggery pleasant stories, i quite liked them, it was a little odd that he was doing 'cthulhu ... y'know, for kids' but i gather that's a thing, right
― thomp, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:51 (1 year ago) Permalink
i read daniel handler's grownup novel once, it wasn't very good
i associate the whole lemony snicket thing w/ the girls in my high school who were deeply in love with neutral milk hotel
― my baby eats special k all day (Lamp), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:53 (1 year ago) Permalink
I think I might have read the first Skullduggery but it was under complicated circumstances, and I didn't follow their success afterward.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:53 (1 year ago) Permalink
Awww I was just going to say I wish D Handler would keep writing The Basic Eight only in a way that was eternally fresh and new!
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:54 (1 year ago) Permalink
Ha, on Wikipedia:
Bosch has been widely believed to be Megan McDonald, Rick Riordan, Heinrich Hoffmann, Daniel Handler (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket), Graeme Williams, Jon Scieszka, Trenton Lee Stewart, or Edie Bilmann.
That's pretty definitely non-commitmal.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 11 July 2011 16:57 (1 year ago) Permalink
Oh yeah, Trenton Lee Stewart, chalk up another one for the wacky hijinx.
― manager expects you to work past 6PM but won't allow you to change into (Laurel), Monday, 11 July 2011 17:00 (1 year ago) Permalink
the copyright is (c) daniel handler so i mean
― remy bean, Monday, 11 July 2011 19:23 (1 year ago) Permalink
i just thought the aping of Depression-era tech and fashion was obviously v effective as a shorthand for "these people have it tough" but unimaginative and pretty unlikely, not two qualities i really want from speculative fiction
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Friday, 17 August 2012 14:50 (9 months ago) Permalink
and there are still seamstresses and dressmakers and tailors in district 12 i would thinkand katniss has her dad's leather jacket and who knows where that came from - the past! i assumethe hunger games is obv so full of holes, as previously pointed out, but whatevs!
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Friday, 17 August 2012 14:51 (9 months ago) Permalink
TH otm. I hate this movie and I haven't even seen it.
― check the name, no caps, boom, i'm (Laurel), Friday, 17 August 2012 14:52 (9 months ago) Permalink
this conversation reminds me of how my parents rave over a movie or tv programme's attention to costume detail and barely care about the plot or characters while i'm the other way around
you are all probably right that the costumery is inaccurate but it's not something that matters to me, really
― lex pretend, Friday, 17 August 2012 16:50 (9 months ago) Permalink
there's no "accuracy" here, it's sci-fi, it just seems dumb, much like the plot and the characters
it's a shame because the PREMISE and the general outline of the setting is just killer (no pun intended), sort of a mashup of lord of the flies, the lottery, the most dangerous game, battle royale and brave new world - right in my wheelhouse
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Friday, 17 August 2012 16:54 (9 months ago) Permalink
Catching Fire trailer. Phillip Seymour Hoffman's in this?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jyPnQw_Lqds
― DavidM, Monday, 15 April 2013 14:21 (1 month ago) Permalink
I didn't know where else to put this but LOLOLOL
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 20:09 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
(JLaw photobombing Sarah Jessica Parker at Met Ball - Marillon Cotillard and Lena Dunham loling in background)
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 20:10 (2 weeks ago) Permalink